![]() Date: 2025-08-22 Page is: DBtxt003.php txt00028006 | |||||||||
COMMENTARY
THE COFFEE KLATCH ... JANUARY 18TH 2025 Robert Reich and Heather Lofthouse Inauguration of the Oligarchs Original article: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pI2FCBlO4EY&list=PLOLArO56vjuoDxbdMWMFEdWfVCsHc2X7W Peter Burgess COMMENTARY Added February 9th ... 3 weeks after it was recorded! The three weeks since the Trump inauguration have been a whirlwind of Presidential activity, including Executive Orders and truly questionable activities by Elon Musk and others. The inauguration itself was different for no other reason than potemtially dangerous cold weather caused most of the pomp and ceremony to the done indoors. As a spectacle the Presidential Inauguration of Donald Trump was impressive. But at the end of a long day, Donald Trump made a production of the process of announcing a flood of Executive Actions both at a desk on-stage and later in the Oval Office. Most of the 'Executive Actions' were related to various 'campaign' ideas that he had talked about prior to the election or included in 'Project 2025' ...the Mandate for Leadership, the Conservative Promise'. 'Project 2025' is a document of around 900 pages released by the conservative Heritage Foundation a few weeks before the election which candidate Trump said he had had no part in its formulation ... frankly, a blatant lie typical of Donald Trump! When I reference anything to do with Donald Trump, it is informed by more than a half century of observation of his personal behavior and that of his 'Trump Organization'. There was a time when I was impressed by the activities of the 'Trump Organization' as it operated in New York City, including the rebuilding of the W Ice Rink in Central Park, and then the rebuilding of the defunct Commadore Hotel to become the Grand Hyatt next to Grand Central Station. There were various other buildings built in New York that were quite impressive, but it also became clear that Donald Trump was a disgusting employer and business partner. In the mide 1990s, Donald Trump was invloved in an initiative to develop casinos in Atlantic City. This was an epic failure, and while Donald Trump, thanks to a lot of expensive lawyering lost relatively little, hundreds, if not thousands, of small and not-so-small contracters lost everything. During this Atlantic City period, I crossed paths with Donald Trump when he was in one of his casinos and observed Donald in operation ... a big dominant ego ordering around subservient minions ... taking all the credit and noe of the blame! Many of the international projects that the Trump Organization ... and/or the Trump family have been involved with have been investment disasters ... though Trump seems to have walked away in most cases with little loss for Trump. Brilliant ... but obnoxious ... and totally 'in character' for Trump and the Trump family! In the first three weeks of the Second Trump Administration I have been surprised and impressed by the speed that Trump and his high level collaborators hace moved to grab the levers of power in the Executive Branch of the US Government. Whether or not their actions are legal ... or constitutional ... does not seem to matter as long as it serves the bigger Trump agenda. The big role that Elon Musk is playing is something of a surprise ... but money talks, and Musk level money easily gets a hearing. Musk is the owner and decision maker at Tesla, at Space-X and a number of other major tech organizations that are substantial in scale and important in role in both the United States and around the world. But Musk is also seriously mentally unstable individual with huge potential for some form of catastrophic melt-down! Trump is wealthy ... but not at the same scale as Musk ... and together they can own anything they want. Whether or not they are able to do anything together for more than a few days had not yet been demonstrated. Trump has put Musk in charge of DOGE ... a newly created Department of Government Efficiency ... that has been going through many of the most critical of government departments to improve their performance. What Trump and Musk are orchestrating does not appear to be either legal or effective ... but more like a power grab and a destruction of government capacity to do anything of social value either in the United States or around the world. The American political and legal system has been in shock for the past three weeks. Some good push-back is emerging ... but it is very slow compared to the warp-speed of Trump actions ... legal or otherwise. It is not clear yet whether the American legal system can hold against the sort of challenge that Trump poses ... and Musk. I am scared stiff because the push-back against what is best decribed as a Trump 'coup' remains tiny compared to what is needed. This past weekend, just short of three weeks into the new Trump administration, the 'loyal opposition' is showing some signs of life ... as are some of the judges in the legal system ... and some of the groups in civil society. There is also an unusual level of unanimity among countries that would normally be considered allies of the United States that what Trump is trying to do 'will not fly'. My view is that in the past three weeks, Trump has done more to damage the United States in almost every important way than anyone ever. I cannot understand how it is that Trump still has any support from the American people ... but he does! In fact his approval level is above 50% in some respected polls. This is very bad news because unless there is an important course correction very soon, the United States will go down for the next several decades and most likely with a lot of violence. This would not be pretty! ... and some of the Peter Burgess | |||||||||
Inauguration of the Oligarchs | The Coffee Klatch with Robert Reich
Robert Reich 1.09M subscribers ... 143,781 views ... 8.4K likes Premiered Jan 18, 2025 The Coffee Klatch with Robert Reich Are we ready for the dark days ahead? On today's Coffee Klatch, Heather Lofthouse and I examine what's to come. Transcript
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